Cholla

“ What could be more beautiful than the desert rim with its towering peaks unrolling into low vistas of bajadas, receding into still lower valleys and swales, piled here and there with rocks of volcanic outcroppings, and then the great splashes of Cholla flowers with their brilliant patchwork of colorings stuck at random on their drab, gray, somber, twisted, thornlike, armored trunks? ”

“ In acquiring a condensed and succulent plant body in order to fit itself to a desert environment the cholla would have courted its own ruin were it not that it acquired a full equipment of spines at the same time. From every standpoint it is, as an individual, admirably equipped for its desert home. It is, however, more than this; it is the best equipped of all desert plants for rapid and wide dissemination. It makes ample provision for its offspring.
The seeds of the cholla, like those of several allied species, rarely if ever germinate on the open mesa. ”

“ The Cursed Cholla, or Devil Cholla, is very appropriately named. Plants grow with prostrate and creeping stems, forming impenetrable masses several feet across. The stems are from a common center with the tips ascending, and the [151] joints, which are as much as six inches long, are club-shaped and tubercled. The spines are very numerous and stout, also very sharp and swordlike, and will cause grief unless one is very careful. They grow a little more than two inches long, are a light yellow, and have short sheaths over their tips. ”

“ A creeping crawling mass of rough hairy spines and sheaths, stout sharp swords, dangerous and effective in harshly repulsing advance of animal or ignorant human, is the Devil Cactus or Cursed Cholla, a veritable fortress on the desert. ”

“ This Cholla grows in the rocky foothills and bajadas and in the sandy desert areas of the southern part of New Mexico and Arizona at fifteen hundred to five thousand feet.
How to grow
Set out young plants at any season or plant cuttings in spring in sandy or gravelly clay soil and water once a month to keep the soil slightly moist until the plants are well established. They grow very easily from cuttings. This Cholla is not injured by zero temperature and grows well outdoors or in the house; but with temperatures below zero it requires protection. ”

“ They ask nothing from man and have little to give in return. With the least disturbance they break into many pieces, each part becoming a new plant. Not only the joints but also the fruit of many varieties upon falling to the ground develop roots and immediately grow anew. Drought has no ill effects on them, for their supply of water will last for over a season. Man and his domestic animals fear Cholla more than any other plant on the desert! For their joints are easily dislodged and the dangerous retrorsely barbed thorns are difficult to remove from the flesh. ”

“ When by accident some of the Chunchos are seen, the Cholos fly with all the rapidity that terror can inspire, and cannot be got together again till they reach their village; then they raise a tremendous shout, and when safe in their dwellings boast proudly of their heroic deeds. ”

“ For, during those fatal years, an awful wayfarer had slowly journeyed over the earth, from one pole to the other—from the depths of India and Asia to the ice of Siberia—from the ice of Siberia to the borders of the seas of France.
This traveller, mysterious as death, slow as eternity, implacable as fate, terrible as the hand of heaven, was the CHOLERA!
The tolling of bells and the funeral chants still rose from the depths of the valley to the summit of the hill, like the complaining of a mighty voice; the glare of the funeral torches was still seen afar through the mist of evening ”

“ On a barren knoll at the back of the town is a ruined adobe bull-ring, once large and ornate, and still higher up, before the monument to the “Heroes of Cochabamba,” the gaze stretches away across a yellowish land, flat as a sea, baking in the blazing sunshine. Costumes, too, show far less color than those of La Paz. La chola wears a similar hat, but it is flatter and therefore uglier, and she has neither the immaculateness, instinct for pleasing color combinations, nor the sprightliness of her Aymará cousin. Natives of pure Caucasian blood are so rare as to be almost conspicuous. ”

“ The Cholo, or half-breed, race of the Cordillera—or indeed the lowlands—is, after the Indian, the most numerous element in the population. These folk unite the qualities of the Spaniard and the aboriginal.
"The Cholos of Bolivia possess excellent qualities. They are robust and well-built physically; they are courteous and intelligent, rapidly acquiring all sorts of knowledge; they are, as a rule, proud and courageous, and, like the Indians, make excellent soldiers. They are good industrial workers; many become foremen and artisans. ”

“ If you should come to visit Chola, you would think no one lived there when you first entered the house. You would see no furniture of any kind, no tables or chairs, for every one sits cross-legged on mats or rugs spread on the floor, or squats on their heels. ”

“ The game-cocks, which no self-respecting cholo would be without, challenge one another shrilly from their respective patios; that moment is rare when a child is not squalling at the top of its voice, the mother, after the passive way of quiteños, making no effort to silence it; cholos whistle all day long at their labors or pastimes; men and boys habitually call one another by ear-splitting finger-whistles; ox-carts, mule-trains, or laden donkeys refuse to move unless several arrieros trot behind them incessantly screaming and whistling ”

“ The men dress in second class European style; the cholas, one might say, half and half. As a rule the cholos treat the Indians more harshly than do the real whites, while to the latter they are rather servile. Some cholos have distinguished themselves as writers and statesmen. Two thirds of the population are said to live at or above 12,000 feet. Several mining camps are at 15,000 to 16,000 feet. ”

“ It comes down to us for the Opinion of some of them, that a Putrefaction of Choler in an humane Body gives Rise to a Pestilence; and of others, that Fire may be so corrupted, as to occasion the same; what therefore the former conceived of Choler, and the latter of Fire, we judge more justly ascribed here to a vitiated saline Spirit. ”

“ Among the Patâris in cholera epidemics the elders of the village and the Ojha wizard feed a black fowl with grain and drive it beyond the boundary, ordering it to take the plague with it. If the resident of another village finds such a fowl and eats it, cholera comes with it into his village. Hence, when disease prevails, people are very cautious about meddling with strange fowls. When these animals are sent off, a little oil, red lead, and a woman’s forehead spangle are put upon it, a decoration which, perhaps, points to a survival of an actual sacrifice to appease the demon of disease. ”

“ The Cholos are in the minority in the country districts, but live, as a rule, in the towns and cantons. Since they have participated directly and ardently in politics, they profess to live, if not for, at least by the State, and have a perfect passion for bureaucracy. In the towns and capitals the Cholos more especially enter the Army and the Church, and lately have also become schoolmasters. There are very distinguished men among the half-breeds, whose degree of education varies. At all times this class has furnished really remarkable statesmen and writers of talent. ”

“ Among the native population the cholos are easily distinguished. They are the migratory classes who live in the larger towns and some of whom work in the mines. Many of them are freighters. They have charge of the pack trains to and from the mines. They have a distinctive dress,—the loose cotton trouser, widening below the knee and with a V-strip of different cloth in either side. They are a political power, for, while they take little part in the elections, they are not unready to share in a disturbance. ”

“ It wa the custom in this period for each King and his generals to wear on the battle-field garlands of a particular kind of flower, to distinguish his party from that of his enemy. The Pandya wore the flowers of the Margosa, the Chera those of the Palmyra, and the Chola the flowers of the Ar. In the stanza translated above, the poet says, that it is not the Pandya or the Chera that fights with the Chola, but a prince of the Chola family, as both wore the garlands of the Ar.
Distracted by civil wars, the Chola Kingdom was not very prosperous during the reign of Nalankilli. ”

“ Cholera has appeared in the bazār: the Hill-men are so much alarmed that they run away from service. My paharīs came to request I would let them all depart and pay them their wages: this I refused to do: they pleaded their fear of the cholera. At length they agreed to remain, if I would give them a kid to sacrifice to the angry goddess who resides in the mountain, and whom they believe has brought the illness amongst them—they are extremely superstitious. What can you expect from uneducated men? ”

“ Cholera and fever are regarded as generally the work of some special Bhût or angry ghost. The Kharwârs believe that disease is due to the Baiga not having paid proper attention to Râja Chandol and the other tutelary godlings of the village. The Pankas think that [125] disease comes in various ways—sometimes through ghosts or witches, sometimes because the godlings and deceased ancestors were not suitably propitiated. All these people believe that in the blazing days of the Indian summer the goddess Devî flies through the air and strikes any child which wears a red garment. ”

“ Everywhere it is believed to be due to the agency of a demon, which can be expelled by noise and special incantations, or removed by means of a scapegoat. Thus, the Muhammadans of Herat believed that a spirit of cholera stalked through the land in advance of the actual disease.26 All over Upper India, when cholera prevails, you may see fires lighted on the boundaries of villages to bar the approach of the demon of the plague, and the people shouting and beating drums to hasten his departure. ”

“ This remarkable legend, which was popular with all the Indian tribes, was one of the most powerful auxiliaries of the Spanish conquerors, in whom the simple Indians thought they recognised the lofty stature, noble mien, clear complexion, and blue eyes, of the deity they had so long expected.
But talking of Cholula has made us forget that the train is going to start: the guards, hurrying in every direction to look for us, summon us into our carriages, the signal is given, and we speed away. ”

“ The natives trembled at the prowess and vengeance of the "white gods."
Cholula is now a mere village. Its four hundred pagan towers have long been demolished, but from the eminence where we stood I counted twenty spires and crosses on the Christian temples of the adjacent Indian hamlets.
The imagination may find full scope in contemplating this grand scene. Looking northward stands the mountain Malinche—the name given to Cortez by the Indians—brown and sere in the distance, on whose rugged and massive sides not a plant grows nor a flower blooms to break the monotony of its awful self. ”

“ After laboriously reaching Cholen, I found far the greater part of the town to be Chinese, rather than Anamese, with Chinese streets, temples, gaming houses, club houses, and that general air of business and industry which seems characteristic of the Chinese everywhere; but still groping my way about, I came upon what I most wished to see—the real Anamese town. There is a river, the Me-kong, or one of its branches, and the town—the real native Cholen—consists of a very large collection of river-dwellings, little, if at all, superior to those which we passed in coming up. ”

“ The dynastic history of the Cholas begins about A.D. 860, and is known from then until its decline in the middle The Chola Kingdom. of the 13th century. During those four centuries their history is intertwined with that of the Pallavas, Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas and other minor dynasties. In A.D. 640 the Chola country was visited by Hsüan Tsang, but the country at that time was desolate, and the dynasty of small importance. In A.D. 985 Rajaraja the Great came to the throne, and after a reign of twenty-seven years died the paramount ruler of southern India. ”

“ Their first destination was the beautiful and sacred city of Cholula—the Rome, as it were, of Mexico. The Tlascalans eagerly warned the Spaniards against approaching it or entering its streets. The Cholulans, they declared, were fair speaking but crafty, making amends to themselves for cowardly weakness by cunning, and the most unscrupulous treachery.
But Cortes was never a man to be easily turned aside from his purpose. ”

“ When cholera has broken out in a Burmese village the able-bodied men scramble on the roofs and lay about them with bamboos and billets of wood, while all the rest of the population, old and young, stand below and thump drums, blow trumpets, yell, scream, beat floors, walls, tin pans, everything to make a din. This uproar, repeated on three successive nights, is thought to be very effective in driving away the cholera demons. ”

“ There is not a word in all these encomiums which is not a eulogy of the American people.
THE CHOLERA.
The disease called Asiatic Cholera is at home in India. It travels, at long intervals, into Europe. There have been eight: or nine of these visitations during the century. The disease travels with man and his belongings; and since intercourse between Asia and Europe has become more swift and abundant, there is a tendency to more frequent visits of the dreaded scourge. In fact, however, this tendency has been overcome by sanitary science. ”